So with all this talk going around about the end of the world I thought I'd ask the fine people of Whitechapel a question...

If the end of the world were to happen one day and every one knew it was coming, what kind of apocalypse would you want and how would you spend your final day?

Personally I like the idea of a nuclear holocaust. There's a slight chance of survivors and with the survivors, an increased chance of mutations in the next of kin. The prospect of the world resorting to a post-apocalyptic "Mad Max" or "Escape from N.Y./LA" world, whether it happens with or without me, would put a smile on my face.

And as for what I'd do on the final day...I'd probably find a really nice spot on top of a building in whatever city I'm living in to see all the bombs go off...I think I'll just sit down, listen to some nice old music (songs like "I don't want to set the world on fire" and "We'll meet again" would be perfect. Yeah, I'm cliche but what the hell) and just watch the fireworks.

Well Boston University is talking of building a sophisticated biolab in a major residential area of Boston. The kind of biolab the U.S. government uses to conduct genetic testing and research on strains of things that we don't have any cures for. This should be completed in 2016, so I'm thinking we may have a world scale Zombie Apocalypse on our hand at that point anyway.

Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse would at least keep things interesting. The trick is to set up a base of operations and keep a low profile and train yourself to be in peak physical and fighting condition. Also, when the looting starts, get out and get supplies early, and get a lot of them. If driven from you home you keep on the move, watch out for bands of remaining humans who want your supplies and hope for the best.

Zombie Apocalypse would be interesting, but I think when all is said and done I'm a big fan of the sun going supernova for no apparent reason and burning the Solar System away in to an outward spreading gas cloud.

Aside from the wide scale orgies and other hedonistic pursuits, which would be obligatory to take part in, I'd try to get in touch with all of the people I've ever been in love with and not had the opportunity or courage to tell them, and finally tell them. I'd say goodbye to all of my closest friend, my family, and thank those people I admire for giving me something to enjoy in my brief stay here on earth. Finally, I'd grab some very, very expensive bottles of Scotch and other assorted delicious alcoholic beverages, head up to the top of my apartment building, preferably with a few close friends and/or my lover (whoever that may be), and kill the bottles while waiting for the show to begin.

I'm not picky about the cause, but if there is an apocalypse I'd prefer it to be the kind that just kills everything. Wipe the whole damned human race from the face of the earth. A supernova seems destructive enough, and would be quite cool to watch.

I'd definitely be somewhere safe watching everyone run about in a blind panic. I'd like to go one further on the cliche-o-meter with the music though: REM's "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)". Hell, I'd even learn the lyrics again for the occasion :P.

Slowpocalypse. There's something headed our way and we can't avoid it; we have five years until the end.

First year is panic and fire, second year is bickering and clawing at each other while the remaining world powers fight for a solution, third year is panic and paralysis. Fourth year is acceptance. At the end of the fifth year, all of the remainders of humanity gather in one place and sits down together in peace, waiting for the sun to come up one last time.

I assume that this day will be marked by a great deal of outdoor fucking. So, you know. I'm there.

I'll take anything that allows me to go out kicking and screaming (hey, its how I entered the world). This would include:-Zombie Apocolypse-Human madness and fighting on an epic scale-Invasion by sophisticated aliens whose only weakness is being hacked apart by significantly rusted machettes

Like Robin I also like the incentive of potential survival and continuation of the speicies...I however do care about being on the winning side ; )

So what you're saying is we have an awesome year of getting to destroy a lot of stuff with complete disregard to order and safety, then two mediocre years with some more, but smaller scale destruction, but mostly just sitting around in disbelief and trying to ignore what is going to happen. Then we have two peaceful years where we basically just exist and work to find peace within and among ourselves. Finally a last ditch outdoor fuck-fest, followed shortly by rampant death and destruction.

I'm more interested in post-apocalypse than apocalypse personally. I'd love a Mad Max style world, or a zombie apocalypse survival. The cause it's so much what intrigues me but surviving afterwards.

If I have to choose a cause I'd say zombies, genetic virus's that kill millions and genetically alter the survivors into "superhumans" with freakish powers or into just freaks, or general humanity going insane with mass genocide.

Odd, I was going to post a thread like this when I got home. You beat me to it!

I'd go for Zombie/government collapse followed by an eventual total existence failure of the planet.

During the initial phase, I'd hijack a boat and sail into the Gulf Islands to join the probably already formed pirate armada. Would start saying "Yarr." a lot.

Would raid and pillage to my hearts content and then complete my lifelong dream of cutting down an old-growth tree and making an orchestra of out of it. The last day*months* would be one big orchestral-orgy, then a final recital as the sun came up and the world went boom. Or foomp.

I vote zombie also.Is reading the Max Brooks Zombie Survival Guide adequate preparation? Hmm...We do have a shotgun somewhere...Probably would have to kill our Mormon neighbours for their Three-Month Supply quick-smart. That's OK, they'll be zombies anyway. Or would end up as zombies eventually. It's an act of mercy.

Definitely a fan of the post-apoc, though, however it happens. If I lived to see it, I'd want to ride around shooting stuff.

The Zombie Survival Guide is FANTASTIC. He makes a lot of good suggestions for general survival (and if you press him he'll admit he researched actual zombie survival), and it also is quite entertaining. I'm really looking forward to reading "World War Z".

Anyone here Read McCarthy's The Road? If anyone has so completely imagined the suffering and anguish that comes with a post-apocalyptic loneliness, where the only thing keeping you alive is a hope as battered and ripped to shit as you are. I guess if the world has to end, I'd want it to end in a little ember of hope, I think we're annoyingly resilient fucks, us humans, and we'll take a lot of shit before we give up.

Also, there's some good old fashioned killing to stay alive and foraging in long-abandoned homes for food.

Ooh, I have The Road in my pile of books that need reading before I can justify buying more books. It can go on the top of the pile now.Also, I read I am Legend a few years back (pre-Will Smith movie) and really liked it. Vampocalypse!

Personally, I've always liked the apocolypse that S.M. Stirling posits in Dies the Fire. A change in the laws of physics renders internal combustion, modern electronicsm gas compression and gunpowder effectively useless, returning mankind to something like a 14th century level of technology, but without guns. I'm not an anachronist and I don't idealize that period in history, but I think that scenario at least allows for the possibility that people will survive.

I spent a lot of time in college talking to friends of mine about the end of the world and reached only one logical conclusion. Unless I plan to take up learning several very old skills and start stocking up on supplies like a Montana survivalist, essentially devoting the rest of my life to that kind of preparation, I will probably die in an apocolypse or shortly thereafter, along with everyone else I know.

:D I grew up in Montana, maybe that's where I keep getting these impulses to learn old skills.

Truthfully though, the apocalypse still comes up in conversation with my friends. I know quite a few farmers, carpenters and other skilled laborers. We all met in University. :P The most popular train of thought is that if the apocalypse comes, we will learn the skills needed to survive by necessity. Having a garden already going and being well stocked would help if the end came quickly, but if you had no food, no infrastructure to draw off of and no skills to speak of, you'd find that starting a fire isn't that hard at all. Neither is gardening or animal husbandry. Just takes lots of patience and love. Which, admittedly is hard to imagine of most people you find in the city day to day, but crisis initiate change.